Plants vs Zombies 2 - It's a good thing it hasn't
come out on PC.

I watched this Giant Bomb Quick Look and decided to give the game a chance even after watching it. I just can't do it. At every turn, the game reminds me I can pay the game to play it for me. The gameplay is really good. It's what I expect of Plants vs. Zombies, but it's ruined. This game desperately wants me to feed it money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4s--SRJSHs

You don't have to give the game money. But if you play through it, you'll inevitably hit a road block that requires you to return to all of the old levels that you already completed and grind them out to get "stars" to advance to the next section of the game. Getting these stars before you hit that roadblock is impossible. Once you hit that roadblock, the map markers for all of the previous levels have changed. Suddenly, there are 3 grayed-out stars under each marker, indicating that you can now get three stars from each of these levels. But not before. Nope. Conveniently, the game puts a gun to your head and demands $5 from you or forces you to go back and replay these levels, artificially increasing the length of the game. I should get a lot of gameplay out of a game because the game is fun, but replaying levels I had completed within the last half hour is not my idea of fun. This makes me wonder what the true length of the game is like. I imagine you get past all the locks and realize that there was never really any light at the end of the tunnel or no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. Never really feeling like you had truly completed something.

If you had the option to earn all of these required stars before you hit this roadblock in the game, I'd probably be okay with it. But as it sits now, it's set up in such way that you either waste your time doing things you've already done, or you feed the app your dollars. I see no reason to play this game over the original.

#2ATARIJAWAPosted 8/17/2013 11:35:00 PM

I watched this Giant Bomb Quick Look

Stopped reading right there.---Gamefaqs game rating system : 10 = Best Game Ever. 8-9. Crushing dissapointment. Below 8 :Total Garbage. This is getting ridiculous. people agreeing so far 105

Reminds me of the WSOP Full House Poker Pro beta I just go into on Xbox Live. It's F2P and just completely focused on the new money store. It's honestly no surprise and while you can completely play the game for free, it just slaps you in the face way too much with all of it.

I usually will invest a few bucks for some cool avatars and stuff to support the game but when it's just so annoying with it, I tend to uninstall and move on. And it's too bad, both PvZ and Full House Poker are games I've truly loved and will probably pass based on this new cash shop crap being so woven into the game.

I'd honestly rather pay for the game and have little to no cash crap but I know that's quickly fading away.---"Trust me Clark, our friendship is gonna be the stuff of legend."FC: 0860-3416-4781 // Lex in Smallvil // ACNL

Edit: Wait, the game is F2P? Why would they do that on a game like PvZ? :/---/|\ http://i.imgur.com/hK9c1lo.jpg?1\|/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE7x0WLz7SY

#9ATARIJAWAPosted 8/17/2013 11:57:10 PM

Ep1taph303 posted...

Wth, Giant Bomb is reputable.

Sure it's right up there with Kotaku.---Gamefaqs game rating system : 10 = Best Game Ever. 8-9. Crushing dissapointment. Below 8 :Total Garbage. This is getting ridiculous. people agreeing so far 105

#10Lemur_H(Topic Creator)Posted 8/18/2013 12:04:16 AM

Reaper_Minion posted...

Edit: Wait, the game is F2P? Why would they do that on a game like PvZ? :/

Might explain why it is iOS only right now. The in-app purchase system is already in place and there a lot of people willing to pay for it. I honestly would prefer something like a flat fee of $9.99 and get to play through the game, start to finish, with no roadblocks.

“By making Plants vs. Zombies 2 a free-to-play game, we had to make the game much more difficult to win,” said Murray during an EA press conference, “If it wasn’t, then no one would ever buy one of our paid items. And if a player gets too frustrated with the game, they can even buy a 30 dollar item that will instantly beat the entire game for them. We included this item because we didn’t want players to get halfway through the game and then quit out of frustration. It would make all the money they spent getting up to that point worthless.”

“Some might say the game is artificially difficult because of our supposed incentive to get players to buy items like that,” continued Murray, “That is actually not the case. Anybody can beat the game without having to engage in any microtransactions. You just need to replay the earlier stages a few dozen times in order to get enough money to beat the harder stages. This is completely fair and fun. In fact, the game is now longer because of this. We’re giving people more content for free.”

Well, now I'm just sad... This supports my theory of the game being artificially lengthy.